If You Love Someone, Let Them Go
by Misha
Summary: Follows "No Happy Ending" and "Fool For Love", Joe realizes that if you love someone, you let them go and hope that they come back. Even if that someone is your wife... Cupcake angst.


If You Love Someone, Let Them Go  
By Misha

Disclaimer- I don't own Stephanie Plum or any of the other characters (though I wish I owned Ranger). They belong to the incredibly talented Janet Evanovich and I'm just borrowing them. I'm not making any money off this, so please don't sue me.

Author's Notes- This is part of my angsty Stephanie Plum series and follows "Fool For Love". This is Joe's point of view and continues the story-arc, there's at least one more story, from Ranger's PoV to finish it off. Warning, this is very angsty.

Pairings- Stephanie/Morelli, Stephanie/Ranger, Ranger/Other

Summery- Follows "No Happy Ending" and "Fool For Love", Joe realizes that if you love someone, you let them go and hope that they come back. Even if that someone is your wife...

Rating- PG-13

Spoilers- All fifteen books, I guess.

* * *

If you love someone let them go and if they're really yours, they'll come back to you.

My mother taught me that when I was child and I found a stray cat and wanted to keep it locked inside so it couldn't run away. She made me let that cat out and the cat did come back, because my love was enough for it.

It's a lot harder to have that philosophy with a person than an animal though, but sometimes it still applies.

For me, the person it applied to the most, was my wife. I loved her, I was devoted to her, but one day I realized that she wasn't happy. I'd trapped her with a diamond ring and if I really loved her I'd let her be free and then see if she came back to me.

It wasn't an easy decision to make. She wasn't some stray cat, she was my _wife_, the mother of my child.

She'd chosen me, made a life with me and it wasn't my fault if she wasn't happy. Wasn't my fault if my love wasn't enough for her and yet... I loved her too much to see her so unhappy.

I'd known Stephanie Plum since I was a child and I'd loved her almost as long and the things I'd loved about her... I'd loved her spirit and her spunk and her independence, loved her charm and zest for life.

Which meant I couldn't cope with the unhappy ghost of a woman she'd become. It didn't happen right after the wedding, for a few months she was the same old Stephanie, if a little distracted.

No the change came when _he_ got married. Ricardo Carlos Manoso, the bane of my existence and my constant rival for Stephanie's affections. I thought the rivalry ended when I got the girl to marry me, but I was wrong. I'd underestimated the bond between them.

Manoso's wedding day should have been a good day for me, should have shut the door on that part of Stephanie's life forever, but it did the opposite. She became quiet and withdrawn and it was easy to see that she was unhappy, that watching him marry someone else had been harder than she'd imagined. I knew that she was wishing it was her and that killed me.

I thought the birth of our baby would cheer her up, show her that she'd made the right decision by marrying me, but if anything it got worse.

It should have been the happiest time in our lives. We were young, healthy and in love and we had a beautiful son, but... It wasn't right, not for Stephanie, and thus, not for me.

I knew that Stephanie would never leave me. She'd made a commitment and she'd stick by it until the end, no matter how much she wished she could do otherwise. Besides, I knew that she did love me, I was just starting to wonder if it was as much as she'd loved Manoso...

Six months after Joe Jr. was born, I started thinking about that old lesson of my mother's and realizing what I had to do. It took me another six months to get up the nerve to do it, to set Stephanie free and it was the most painful decision of my life...

_//"Cupcake." I said softly. I'd waited until night time to have our conversation._

"Yes, Joe?" She asked, looking at me with the same sad blue eyes I'd been looking at for months.

"I'm moving out." I told her quietly.

She froze. "What?" She asked, sadness turning to horror. "Did I do...?"

I wanted to reassure her, tell her she was perfect, everything I ever wanted, but.... "You don't love me." I said quietly. "At least not the way I love you. Do you Cupcake?"

She turned her head, unable to look me in the eye. "I've been faithful to you our entire marriage." She told me quietly, when she could finally look at me again.

I noticed she said marriage, not relationship, which was good, because otherwise I wouldn't have believed her. I knew what had gone on in that alley, but I also trusted Stephanie enough to know that it had stopped when she'd committed herself to marry me. Whatever her feelings for Manoso, Stephanie wasn't the type to break her marriage vows. Not when she'd been so hurt by her ex-husband's infidelity.

"That wasn't what I asked." I said quietly. "Do you love him, Steph?"

She just stared at me miserably, obviously wanting to lie. "Yes." She said finally, unable to even look at me. I felt as if my world was being shattered into a million pieces, but I willed myself to stay strong.

"And that's why I'm moving out." I told her quietly.

"Joe... I...." She began.

"I know." I said softly, more resigned that angry. "I'm giving you time, Cupcake, time to figure out what you really want. I hope you'll realize that it's me and Joe Jr. and our life together. That by letting you go, you'll realize you want to come back to me, but it has to be a choice. I don't want you because it's a duty, I want you because you want me as well."

With that, I dropped a kiss on her forehead and walked out the door. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but I knew it was also the right thing to do. I'd needed to do this and someday I'd be glad I did, no matter how much it was tearing me apart at that moment...//

So that was it. I walked away from my marriage, because it was the only thing I could do.

Rumours flew in the Burg, of course, alternatingly painting both Stephanie and I as the most vile of villains, but... The truth was, when it's not right it's not right. My mother and Ellen Plum both ganged up on Stephanie, but she held her own.

It's been three months since I left and Stephanie's been spotted at Haywood a lot lately, she started working for Rangeman, though, and I don't know if there's any more to it than that.

I doubt it, since Gina Manoso is still living there and for all that I'm willing to think the worst of him, Manoso's not the type to fool around with one woman while still married to another and Stephanie's not the type to have an affair with a married man.

Maybe I let Stephanie go for a man who didn't want her or maybe she realized she didn't want Manoso. I don't know.

All I know is that she hasn't come back yet.

I suspect that they're just taking their time, waiting to see what's happening, before they ruin any more lives.

I don't know what I want. Part of me wants Stephanie to be truly happy, but I'm not that noble and a bigger part of me wants her to come back to me.

What I'm really hoping for is that they'll have their moment and realize that there never was anything there, it was all in their heads, blown out of proportion because it was forbidden and after they have their moment, they'll call it a day and Stephanie will realize I'm the love of her life, not Manoso.

Maybe that makes me a little pathetic, because I'm willing to wait for that chance, but what can I say. I love her, I always have. And because I love her, I let her go, now I just have to wait and see if she was ever really mine to begin with.

- The End


End file.
